This disclosure relates to sharing data across computing systems and managing application installation to facilitate the sharing of data. Computer users typically utilize a plurality of different machines throughout the day whether for work related activities or personal activities. Each of these systems has a particular computing architecture and a particular operating system. The operating systems often vary from one system to another. As such, the set of applications available for execution on a given system typically differs from the set of applications available for execution on another system. When one considers the use of virtualization with each virtual machine being another system, the diversity among systems is even larger.
Users expect to be able to utilize their data across these different systems. Sharing data across these systems, however, is often tedious. Sharing typically requires that the data, e.g., a data file, be copied or moved from a first system to a second system. Depending upon the security in effect, the transfer may require specialized transport mechanisms. Further, particular applications are usually required to interpret data contained in a transferred data file within the second system. The application must be adapted to interpret the particular file type of the data file. In cases where the application needed to interpret the data file is not installed or available, the user has no ability to access the data file on the second system.